


Serpent Under Flower

by ChookTingle



Category: Love & Legends (Visual Novel)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Betrayal, Dark Magic, F/F, Lies, Mind Control, Mind Games, POV First Person, Present Tense, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 16:58:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15610821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChookTingle/pseuds/ChookTingle
Summary: As Helena falls in love, the Witch Queen plays a long game.





	Serpent Under Flower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aphoticdepths](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphoticdepths/gifts).



> MC is named 'Lyn' here but I'm happy to change that to anything else you prefer, aphoticdepths! I can also edit this into past tense if you'd prefer that - it just came out the most easily in present tense.

In the dining hall, in front of the other generals, Lyn puts on a look of cold command that I know far too well. They quail - well and good. I don't want to let her know how much it frightens me, too.

I don't want to let her know, because I know that isn't who she is. The Witch Queen was never capable of Lyn's kindness, or her joy.

*

In my chambers, Lyn pulls back from a kiss, and I smile at her upturned face. She's sitting in my lap, one knee on either side of my body, her arms wrapped around me. I love her kisses. I love how she reacts to my smile, as if I'm the sun and she's a flower soaking up my light. She makes me gentler, softer.

With Lyn, I like thinking of myself as gentle. With Lyn, it doesn't mean _weak_.

She also loves my strength. She squeaks happily as I wrap one arm around her and abruptly stand up, easily supporting her weight. 

"Where are you taking me?" she asks breathlessly, as if there is no answer I could give that would disappoint her.

I wish I could give her a truly fanciful reply. I could transport us to some other place, of course, but I have no home besides this castle - and this castle is occupied by the other generals, whose suspicions are rising. My workshop is private, but not designed for luxury. 

Bereft of an answer that will make her eyes sparkle with imagination, I can at least make her blush. "To bed," I say simply. 

She grins disarmingly. "Can I just say how hot that is? I can't believe it, someone as beautiful as you - and with your amazing skills! - is this into me. It's just like one of Sophie's movies. Somehow I don't mind how over-the-top this is when it's actually happening to me, you know?"

I understand two-thirds of what she's saying, but her affection translates easily.

"You can say whatever you like," I tell her, and I mean it. Then, contrary, I kiss her again.

Holding her securely, I step towards the bed. It's good that I'm holding her, because when she feels her feet touch the edge, Lyn lets go of me, leaning back trustingly, with a little giggle as she anticipates her fall. Rolling my eyes, I instead lay her down carefully. Like something precious. Which she is.

She wriggles backwards to make room for me, almost too far for easy reach as I move to the side of the bed. "Be still," I say fondly, and she stops immediately.

"Is that what you want?" she asks hopefully. She enjoys it when I tell her what I want from her. And I enjoy giving her...

 _Orders_ , part of me thinks, and I push that aside. The Witch Queen gave orders. This is very, very different.

"I only want you to stay within reach," I counter, feigning exasperation. 

She grins again. "Well, I want that too!"

I lean towards her, placing one knee on the bed so that both my hands are free to touch her. I stroke her soft hair, tracing her neck through it, and my hand catches on the fastening of her cloak. 

Her breath catches. "Please," she says, and tilts her head back, baring her throat.

She's so vulnerable. Her trust awes me. She's seen me use my magic. She's seen me attack Lennox violently and threaten his life. But she looks at me without a hint of fear, and the last time anyone did that - I cannot even remember their face. It was, in any case, very long ago.

Even the Witch Queen, I realise now, looked at me with fear. Even though at the time I only saw calculation and disdain and ego... Which are also things that are missing here, today, in Lyn's eyes. I shake my head a little, so that my hair falls to either side of Lyn's face and closes us off from the world. I bend to kiss her neck, with only a hint of teeth.

"Oh," she murmurs appreciatively. And, apropos of nothing, "I love you, Helena."

I flush with pleasure, but also discomfort. I can't yet say it back to her. I can't say anything that earnest and passionate. The words dry up in my throat. I can only try to show her, with my hands and lips, how that makes me feel.

It is perhaps no surprise that Lyn is divested of the rest of her clothes in a very short time.

It's so easy to please her. I love how much I've learned already about how to make her gasp and laugh and moan. When she presses back against my fingers, when she pulls me close, when she sighs... The signs of her pleasure feel like a reward.

As she comes down from a second orgasm, she places her hand above the line of my corset, the lightness of her touch a request for permission. "May I touch you through this?"

"Yes."

She caresses my breasts through the sturdy cloth and stays, and somehow it feels more intimate than her hands on bare flesh would be, and somehow I don't mind.

I lie down beside her, and she puts one arm around me, the other continuing her gentle massage.

"I think I'd like to..." I say, not quite able to finish the sentence, trusting that my hand moving down past my stomach is clear enough.

Her eyes sparkle with affection. "Well, _my_ hands are occupied, so I think you'd better," she jokes. I know she wants to do the same things to me that I have just done to her, but I also know she will respect my last refusal, and she won't offer again, until I ask.

I keep that image in my head - of asking her, of her enthusiasm and desire - as I rub my clit. I have to force myself to slow down - my body responds almost too quickly.

I want to close my eyes on orgasm, hide just that last part of myself from her - but I force myself to hold her gaze, her smile.

So I see when her smile changes, and becomes far, far more familiar than Lyn's. More familiar than my own.

"Such a beautiful slut," the Witch Queen says.

*

I'm frozen in place as surely as if the Witch Queen's words were a spell. There is no magic holding me. Only my own terror.

I feel sick, so sick. I cough, choking on air and bile.

The look is gone from her face the moment I move, and Lyn - is it Lyn? - is all concern.

"Are you all right, Helena?"

No, I'm not.

Then the Witch Queen again, her smirk stealing across my lover's face like a spill of oil. 

"You're frightening her," she murmurs. "She only sees what I let her see."

And just now, Lyn saw me staring at her in horror and fear and disgust. I feel guilty. I look away.

"But I see everything."

I can't help it - I whimper. In all the dizzying games the Witch Queen played with me, she never stole from me what she has stolen just now. She made me beg. She brought me to tears. She made me ask her to do to me what I least wanted her to do. But she never saw me open and trusting and smiling and safe.

She laughs. 

"How I despised this mind when I awoke in it," she remarks. "How I hated this weak vessel. But now that I have control - this, this is delicious. You love her, don't you?"

I do. Of course I do. How stupid of me to imagine that if I never said the words, they could not be held against me.

"She's still here, for now. Locked away with me. When I let her out again, it will be as though no time as passed. A lapse in memory. Shall I do that now?"

"No," I manage to say. Not until I have control of myself again. Not until... I swallow desperately around the thought of Lyn, flushed and happy and generous, meeting my eyes and the cold terror there. 

"Wonderful," the Witch Queen says. "I'm glad you prefer your queen. In that case, perhaps I shall obliterate her. I don't like to share what is mine, and I have no need for her."

 _Lyn_. I can't bear for that to happen. If I beg, I make it worse. If I say something flippant and cruel, playing her game, she'll call my bluff. And murder Lyn's mind, trapped in her grasp. I close my eyes.

The Witch Queen's hands are playing idly along my skin as she watches me. Almost as gentle as Lyn's - and that deliberate mimicry is one of the most vicious things she's ever done to me.

"Poor Helena. You don't know what to do. I'll tell you. Look at me."

I look at her. She's making an effort to hide the eager sadism in her smile. She isn't doing a very good job of it, yet.

"I'll retreat. You can have your little Lyn back, for a while. But you're mine, always, not hers. I want you to show me that you understand. I want you to ask Lyn to fuck you, again. Give her everything. You don't hold anything back from her. You don't hold anything back from _me_."

"I understand," I say, forcing the words through my closing throat.

"You'll need to act well for me, Helena," she says. "If she realises what's happening, it won't be fun any more. I'll truly have no use for her. If you tell her about me - if you let her understand - then there will _be_ no more Lyn."

"I understand," I echo myself.

"I want you to smile at her," she murmurs, "and know you're smiling for me. I want you to come on her fingers. Which are my fingers, Helena. You only belong to her insofar as you belong to me."

"I understand."

"I knew you would." 

Blue fire dances in her eyes, and another hope does. Lyn has no magic - but her possessor does.

Then the blue fire dies.

"Helena?" Lyn sounds so worried. "What's wrong?"

She's what's wrong. I'm what's wrong. Everything is wrong.

"A memory," I say, beginning my betrayal. "Please, hold me - I want to ask you something, but it's hard."

"Of course. Anything." Her arms go around me. I can't see her face this way. I can't see who it is who's holding me - Lyn or my ruler.

"I want you to touch me," I say into her shoulder. It almost feels easier that it's a lie to both of them, rather than true for one and false for another. I wasn't ready for this, with Lyn. I never want this again, with the Witch Queen.

"Are you sure?" She sounds so hopeful, and tears start into my eyes. This is a betrayal.

"I'm sure."

She cuddles in even closer to me. She touches me so gently. She moves so, so slowly, and as she does, she tells me how she feels. How beautiful she thinks I am.

I can't bear it, but I also can't believe the Witch Queen would ever say these words. As long as she's talking, saying the most kind and lovely and painful things imaginable, I know it's her.

It's lucky I'm able to come. I wouldn't be able to except that I'm still feeling the warmth of my last orgasm, the one I wanted.

"You're crying," she says. Oh, Lyn.

"I know. I still want this," I tell her.

It's the Witch Queen's laugh when she wipes the tears away.

*

The other general praise me to my face for bringing back our Queen, but the Witch Queen feeds their jealousy and smirks at their sulks. They don't know that Lyn's still present in her body. 

She isn't present very often. The Witch Queen brings her out some days - not all. A casual remark from Lyn tells me that as far as Lyn knows, it's all the same day. A day of gentle sex, walks in the gardens, studies in my workshop. Lyn's day is, in fact, several weeks.

During one of the times the Witch Queen orders me to initiate sex with Lyn, she grows bored of watching halfway through, and takes Lyn over as I'm bringing her to orgasm. The next time she lets Lyn out, Lyn is walking through the castle with me, and she's confused.

"I thought... I don't remember how I got here," she says.

"You've been having - moments," I say. It's as close to the truth as I dare. "Sometimes you forget where you are from moment to moment. We were just with the generals."

"Oh," she says, frightened. I wish I could reassure her. I wish I could make clear all there is to be frightened of. "Are they suspicious?"

"No," I say.

"Is there anything your magic can do?"

"I don't know," I say. That also comes close to dangerous truths. I've gone through every book I know on mind magic, hoping that there's a way to cast the Witch Queen out and leave Lyn free of her. But I can't find a way.

*

Confusing Lyn on purpose - leaving me to try to fill in the gaps, and explain her fear away with lies - becomes a favourite of the Witch Queen's games.

I have only one defiance left in me.

I come to the Witch Queen's chamber from the training ground, and unbuckle my weapons to lie on her floor as I make love to a body that changes, at one moment my lover, the next, my enemy.

We sleep curled up together when the Witch Queen is satisfied. In sleep, she could be either the woman I loathe or the woman I love. Or neither.

My dagger has already been spelled for silence. It doesn't jingle as I pull it from my sheath.

But she hears me.

It's the Witch Queen who wakes, but it's Lyn who stares up at me where I crouch above her, aiming my blade. She sees her death above her. She sees me now as everyone else has always seen me - frightening, evil.

"Helena," she begs. "Why are you doing this? Please -"

I steel myself. It hurts that this is the last thing Lyn will see, but then we'll all be free: Lyn will be free of this chained un-life, I will be free of my lies, and this realm will be free of the Witch Queen. 

I strike.

Ice locks me into place, the blade far short of the Witch Queen's heart.

"You spoiled my game, my pet," she murmurs, eyes gleaming. "I shall have to find a new one."

I do not doubt her imagination.


End file.
